Will democracy make you happy?

May 9, 2008

I thought about boring you with a ‘woe is me’ post on my computer trials (short story- PC fixed but laptop back to manufacturers) but instead thought I’d post a link to this article that was forwarded to me today.

The question, though, is which comes first: happiness or democracy? Despite our earlier thinking, there is now growing evidence that a happy population, one where people are satisfied with their lives as a whole, is a prerequisite for democracy…

What the evidence on happiness demonstrates is that happy people are much more likely to express satisfaction with their country’s political regime, regardless of what kind that might be, than unhappy people. That’s not to say that democracy doesn’t matter. It does. All things being equal, democracy does provide a happiness boost. But all things are rarely equal.